Re: Degrees of comparation

>From: Sally Caves <scaves@...>
>Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:39:13 -0400
>
>Teonaht also has an equative, "as beautiful as,"
>and it is developing what I call an "alterative":
>"other beautiful than."  Meaning "beautiful in
>a different way."  I wanted Teonaht to be able
>to express other than binary oppositions in its
>basic grammar.  Do other natlangs have this
>concept in the comparative?
>
<snip lots of cool info>

>ALTERATIVE:
>zef uor androfaiht
>         "a man 'differently' handsome.
>ta der uor androfaiht zef-li
>         "A man handsome in a different way from him."
Wow, Sally, I really love this concept of "differently expressing the same
quality".  Why doesn't ENGLISH do cool things like that?  This grammatical
feature could be used to great effect in poetry and Congressional floor
bickerings I would imagine.  And imagine the new ways it wouold provide for
hedging on an answer when you don't want to lie, but don't want to offend
someone either. . .  Fraught with possibilties.

Adam

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